​​In The Shadow of Longs Peak

San Rafael Swell

2007

We are here, finally, on the east side of the swell.  This is the trip we attempted last fall, where it rained for days and we finally escaped by going out “the back way’.

We are camped at a level area, to the south of the old Smith Cabin.  Our first visit here was some 3.5 years ago at Thanksgiving.  My impression at that time:  the camping is bleak, the hiking is great.  Now, in spring, with the warmth of the sun and newly green sage brush, the camping is definitely not bleak, though you do have to have an affinity to see the beauty of what appears to be a moonscape:  the starkness of the rock outcroppings, warping an folding with fields of sage, more brown than green; the earth-tones of the of the rock bands across the valley. 

The peace that comes from the isolation.